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Water:Turkey to spend 4.37 bln euros on dams in next 5 years

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, NOVEMBER 13 - Turkey will spend about 10
billion Turkish Liras (4.37 billion euros) over the next five
years on the Southeast Anatolia Project, a chain of
hydro-electric dams and irrigation systems in the mainly Kurdish
southeast. The plan, as Bloomberg reports, would increase land
under cultivation in the region more than sixfold, Sadrettin
Karahocagil told reporters in the southeastern city of
Sanliurfa. The project, widely known by its Turkish acronym GAP,
will increase farm areas to 2 million acres (809,000 hectares)
when completed in 2017, Karahocagil's office said. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government will start allocating
money for the project from the budget in 2013, ending the
practice of transfers from the unemployment benefit fund. Three
decades of war with autonomy-seeking Kurdish militants in the
southeast has retarded economic development. The project is also
expected to create more than 3 million jobs in the southeast,
where the government is offering incentives such as cheaper
energy, free land and cuts in payroll taxes paid by employers,
Karahocagil said. Pinar Sut Mamulleri Sanayii AS (PNSUT) is
among companies planning to invest in Sanliurfa, he said.